


Mourning That Which Has Not Died

by elle_nic



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Alcohol Mentions, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, based off of some feelings i had watching big little lies today, fiction&femslashevent, nothing extreme at all but still better to warn yall here, specifically mentions of drinking gin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 07:42:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20188723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_nic/pseuds/elle_nic
Summary: The hollowness of one man's love for his wife echoes within Andy.





	Mourning That Which Has Not Died

**Author's Note:**

> I am feeling A Lot and I think that's all I'm gonna say on that... 
> 
> Let me know what you think :)))

_Thought that I’d feel better,_

_But now I got a bellyache._

\- _bellyache_, Billie Eilish  
  
.oOo.  


She knew she was going to regret drinking gin that night. She knew that the bitter aftertaste, especially with the tonic water, would spread from her mouth to her head to her heart. She knew she was going to be sad, but she drank it anyway, and now she was going to have to pretend to Miranda that she was fine, fine, fine. _I’m fine._ She was fine. She _was_ fine, because she had Miranda and she had herself and she thought they were both pretty great people, even with their little flaws. She had Miranda, she repeated. She was fine.

She was a shit liar, and even worse at hiding her tears. She was bad at hiding from Miranda, too, because why would she want to? Miranda was great, she was beautiful, she loved Andy and Andy loved, loved, loved her. She was fine. But today was the anniversary of Miranda’s divorce from a man Andy had met, had known. To the editor, that meant nothing. Another day, another crisis at _Runway_, another piano recital, another dinner to cook and another set of post-it notes to devour. It was just another day to her, but to Andy? To Andy it was… horrible. It was horrible. But she was fine.

“People who are ‘fine’ do not cry like this, Andréa,” Miranda said steadily, confusedly, when Andy tried to convince her. She sat on their bed in their room in their house. She looked at their things and the photos they had around of them together. Miranda loved well, and she loved often and thoroughly. Never at _Runway_, but at home, certainly.

“I’m just sad,” she replied, voice thick with gin and bitterness. Miranda’s bone deep sigh rattled against the delicate atmosphere. It chimed against her teary eyes as she removed her heels and climbed into bed, still dressed, and curled onto her side. _I’m fine._

“What’s making you sad, darling? I want to help,” Miranda coaxed. Miranda had used that soft, pleading tone before. Andy had seen it, had heard it late in the night when she ventured too far, when she saw the brick wall that Miranda was married to and how her soft reassurances had been met with stoniness. Miranda was coiffed and dignified and so strong at work, but at home she was soft and at ease and still just as dignified. Andy wasn’t a brick wall. She wasn’t someone who could hear that note in Miranda’s voice and ignore it. She was not a brick wall. She was fine.

“It’s been years,” Andy said with a voice like mercury. Watery and heavy. Fine.

“Years since what, darling?”

Her divorce. Since her then spouse had filed, completed and finalised his wishes to _leave_ her. Leave _her_…

“I’m sad because I don’t understand,” Andy cried. And vowed in the same moment to never drink gin again.

“Andréa, I don’t know what that means,” Miranda chided somewhat, rattled with Andy’s unusual emotions and even more unusual explanations for them. Andy wanted to explain, but she wanted to cry more, so she did. She cried into her pillow, uncaring of her expensive cases. She cried into Miranda’s neck as her wife took her dress off her. She cried as Miranda pulled back the blankets and climbed in before tugging Andy down onto her. She cried, and cried, and cried.

And shit, she thought, but it was the most justifiable reason, she felt, to cry over her wife’s divorce from her ex-husband. She didn’t understand divorce, and not because of the mid-western naivety that Nigel still picked on her for, but because of her deep love and respect and admiration of women, of Miranda. Andy cried because how can a man, any man, marry their wife whom they love and raise children with them and then be tempted away by another woman like Stephen had been? How could a man not love their wife the way Andy loved hers? She didn’t understand, and she was sad because of that. Sad that someone wanted to divorce Miranda when she couldn’t think of anything worse. She was confused. And sad.

She was fine.

In the morning, when Miranda would ask her about her strange night and breakdown, she would grimace and blame the gin she had had and ask for a headache tablet. She would brush her teeth and kiss her wife and tell her she loves her and mean it. She would fall back to sleep and only when Miranda had gone off to her yoga class would Andy have another sip of gin. Cringe at the bitterness and wonder, if after all, she was fine.

She would decide she was and make Miranda a lovely lunch, then make love to her on their bed or their couch or in their shower. And in another year, Andy would decide, by no coincidence, to have some gin. But for now?

For now, she was fine.


End file.
